The extent and importance of the Grecian fisheries[1416] may be inferred from the prodigious quantities of fish eaten in every part of Greece; for although they knew nothing in antiquity of those long fasts during which the members of the Greek church in modern times, ceasing to prey upon the dumb inhabitants of terra firma, let loose their voracity against those of the sea, they were no less partial to this kind of food than their descendants,[1417] as will have been seen from a preceding portion of this work. Fisheries were accordingly established on nearly every part of the coast of Hellas, as well as of those islands and distant colonies of which she became mistress. ----- Footnote 1416: In the heads of certain fish, jewels are said to have been sometimes found. Athen. iii. 70. Footnote 1417: Strabo relates an excellent anecdote in illustration of this passion of his countrymen. Speaking of the city of Iasos, situated in an island of the same name on the coast of Caria, whose inhabitants drew their chief subsistence from their maritime pursuits, and were abundantly supplied with fish, he adds,—that once upon a time a celebrated musician was performing in public before the inhabitants of this city: suddenly the bell which announced the opening of the fish-market was heard to sound. Away, in an instant, scampered the Iasians, eager to secure their favourite dainty, all except a single individual, who appeared to enjoy the performance of the citharador. Flattered by this mark of his taste or politeness, the musician approached the man, and said, “I am greatly obliged by the attention you have shown me, and have to congratulate you on your love of the art; for all the rest, as soon as they heard the bell ring, ran away.”—“What then! has the bell rung?” inquired the apparent listener, who happened to be deaf. “Yes,” answered the musician. “Then good luck be with you!” cried the man, and rising hastily from his seat, he rushed after his townsmen. Strab. xiv. 2. t. iii. p. 203, seq. ----- Thus a celebrated lamprey[1418] fishery existed on the Faro of Messina, an eel-fishery at Syracuse,[1419] another for taking the purple fish, on the eastern coast of Eubœa, a second on the shores of Laconia, a third at Sigæum in Asia Minor, and a fourth in the neighbourhood of Tyre and Sidon.[1420] Whales and dolphins were caught in the Mediterranean, and in the Black Sea; thunnies in the same sea, on the Bosporos, in the sea of Marmora, in the Hellespont, in the Adriatic, and in nearly all the eastern parts of the Mediterranean. Many kinds of smaller fish afforded employment to numerous bodies of men in the gulfs and bays of Attica and the Peloponnesos; and flourishing sponge-fisheries were carried on along the coast of Crete, and in several other parts of the Archipelago.[1421] ----- Footnote 1418: